Below are the quote choices for the Democratic Citizenship Section of the book. Feel free to add additional quotes. We've noted which quotes have been selected within the table. If you see a quote you would like to use that has not been selected, then please put your name in the respondent column and then email us to let us know which quote you have selected. Thank you.
Current number of additional entries possible in this section: 0
Democratic Citizenship
Item
Quote
Source
Respondent
DC1
There is an old saying to the effect that it is not enough for a man to be good; he must be good for something. The something for which man must be good is capacity to live as a social member so that what he gets from living with others balances with what he contributes.
Democracy and Education, p. 359
DC2
Human associations may be ever so organic and so firm in operation, but they develop into societies in a human sense only as their consequences, being known, are esteemed and sought for.
The Public and its Problems, p.152
DC3
Wherever there is conjoint activity whose consequences are appreciated as good by all singular persons who take part in it, and where the realization of the good is such as to effect an energetic desire and effort to sustain it in being just because it is a good shared by all, there is in so far a community. The clear consciousness of a communal life, in all its implications, constitutes the idea of democracy.
The Public and its Problems, p. 149
DC4
The essential point is that isolation makes for rigidity and formal institutionalizing of life, for static and selfish ideals within the group.
Democracy and Education, p. 86
DC5
Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature.
“Creative Democracy – The Task Before Us,” in The Later Works Vol. 14 p. 226
Novak
DC6
The individual is to be the bearer of civilization; but this involves a remaking of the civilization that he bears.
“The Problem of Knowledge,” (in The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays)p. 297
Ayers
"It should be commonplace, but unfortunately it is not, that no education - or anything else for that matter - is progressive unless it is making progress." (introduction to The Use of Resources in Education, ix) D. Tanner
"The problem of education is its relation to the direction of social change is all one with the problem of finding out what democracy means. . we have been negligent in creating a school that should be the constant nurse of democracy." (Education and Social Change, 416) Goodman
"It is the office of the school environment to balance the various elements in the social environment. . . and to come into living contact with a broader environment." (Democracy and Education, 24-25), Hlebowitsh
"The things in civilization we most price are not of ourselves. . . more widely accessible and more generously shared that we have received it." (A Common Faith, 58) Kridel
Item
Quote
Source
Respondent
DC7
When nature and society can live in the schoolroom, when the forms and tools of learning are subordinated to the substance of experience, then shall be the opportunity for this identification, and culture shall be its democratic password.
The School and Society, p. 62
Bohan
DC8
What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy.
The School and Society, p. 7
Flinders
DC9
We must conceive of them (school work) in their social significance, as types of the processes by which society keeps itself going, as agencies for bringing home to the child some of the primal necessities of community life, and as ways in which these needs have been met by the growing insight and ingenuity of man; in short, as instrumentalities through which the school itself shall be made a genuine form of active community life, instead of a place set apart to learn lessons.
The School and Society, p. 14
Stack
DC10
Men live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in common; and communication is the way in which they come to possess things in common.
Democracy and Education, p. 4
Dentith
DC11
A being connected with other beings cannot perform his own activities without taking the activities of others into account. For they are the indispensable conditions of the realization of his tendencies. When he moves he stirs them and reciprocally.
Democracy and Education, p. 12
DC12
Not only is social life identical with communication, but all communication (and hence all social life) is educative. To be a recipient of a communication is to have an enlarged and changed experience. One shares in what another has thought and felt in so far, meagerly and amply, has his own attitude modified.
Democracy and Education, p. 5
Thayer-Bacon
Item
Quote
Source
Respondent
DC13
Democracy cannot flourish where the chief influences in selecting subject matter of instruction are utilitarian ends narrowly conceived for the masses, and, for higher education of the few, the traditions of a specialized cultivated class.
Democracy and Education, p. 192
DC14
The desired transformation is not difficult to define in a formal way. It signifies a society in which every person shall be occupied in something which makes the lives of others better worth living, and which accordingly makes the ties which bind persons together more perceptible – which breaks down the barriers of distance between them.
Democracy and Education, p. 316
Hewitt
DC15
The conception of education as a social process and function has no definite meaning until we define the kind of society we have in mind.
Democracy and Education, p. 97
Berman
DC16
Particularly it is true that a society which not only changes but which has the ideal of such change as will improve it, will have different standards and methods of education from one which aims simply at the perpetuation of its own customs.
Democracy and Education, p. 81
DC17
Any education given by a group tends to socialize its members, but the quality and value of the socialization depends upon the habits and aims of the group.
Democracy and Education, p. 83
DC18
Democracy is the faith that the process of experience is more important than any special results attained, so that special results achieved are of ultimate value only as they are used to enrich and order the ongoing process.
“Creative Democracy – The Task Before Us,” in The Later Works Vol. 14 p. 343
DC19
The foundation of democracy is faith in the capacities of human nature; faith in human intelligence and in the power of pooled and co-operative experience. It is not belief that these things are complete but that, if given a show, they will grow and be able to generate progressively the knowledge and wisdom needed to guide collective action.
Problems of Men, p. 59
Fishman
Item
Quote
Source
Respondent
DC20
The schools have also the responsibility of seeing to it that those who leave its walls have ideas that are worth thinking and worth being expressed, as well as having the courage to express them against the opposition of reactionaries and standpatters.
“Freedom in The Later Works, Vol. 11, p. 253
DC21
The serious threat to our democracy is not the existence of foreign totalitarian states. It is the existence within out own personal attitudes and within our own institutions of conditions similar to those which have given a victory to external authority, discipline, uniformity and dependence upon The Leader in foreign countries. The battlefield is also accordingly here – within ourselves and our institutions.
Freedom and Culture, p. 44.
DC 22
When the instrumental and final functions of communication live together in experience, there exists an intelligence which is the method and reward of the common life, and a society worthy to command affection, admiration, and loyalty.
Experience and Nature, p. 169
DC 23
Is love of liberty every anything more than a desire to be liberated from some special restriction? And when it is got rid of does the desire for liberty die down until something else feels intolerable?
Below are the quote choices for the Democratic Citizenship Section of the book. Feel free to add additional quotes. We've noted which quotes have been selected within the table. If you see a quote you would like to use that has not been selected, then please put your name in the respondent column and then email us to let us know which quote you have selected. Thank you.
Current number of additional entries possible in this section: 0
Democratic Citizenship
"It should be commonplace, but unfortunately it is not, that no education - or anything else for that matter - is progressive unless it is making progress." (introduction to The Use of Resources in Education, ix) D. Tanner
"The problem of education is its relation to the direction of social change is all one with the problem of finding out what democracy means. . we have been negligent in creating a school that should be the constant nurse of democracy." (Education and Social Change, 416) Goodman
"It is the office of the school environment to balance the various elements in the social environment. . . and to come into living contact with a broader environment." (Democracy and Education, 24-25), Hlebowitsh
"The things in civilization we most price are not of ourselves. . . more widely accessible and more generously shared that we have received it." (A Common Faith, 58) Kridel